Victory Poker Waves White Flag at Successful Future and Become Defeat Poker on Cereus

An alliance of the weak was formed this last few weeks as Victory Poker - formerly the flagship poker room on the growing Everleaf Network joined the home of the rooms involved in the Absolute and UB Poker Scandals, the Cereus network. With a roster of well reputed pros one has to wonder how they will feel about being associated with a network even Phil Hellmuth eventually severed ties with.

Annie Duke & Hellmuth to Quit UB - Rats Leaving the Sinking Ship?

Annie Duke posted on her Twitter this week that her time at Ultimate Bet Poker the home of the endless allegations of Ultimate Bet Scandals and often weird software bugs and security holes that have drifted out over the last few years. Despite optimism that the future was bright for the room and they were putting some of these things behind them they have been blasted by the departure of one of their most senior pro team members.

Ultimate Bet Domain Dropped in Attempt to Move on From Scandal

Not ones to be long out of the headlines for their scandals, security holes and general poor software (not that all those stories are true of course but many are and they have started to pay compensation for the main scandal) Ultimate Bet has dropped the use of that domain to focus on UB.

Stoxtrader Found Guilty in Initial PokerTableRatings Hands Analysis

The now infamous Nick "Stoxtrader" Grudzien, formerly the Lead Poker Instructor at Stoxpoker (Cardrunners owned brand), was found guilty by NoahSD's analysis of PokerTable Ratings data. NoahSD is a known statistics expert and put together a thorough report and as yet we await a clear response from the Grudzien camp.

NoahSD concluded that Stoxtrader did in fact collude on the accounts 40putts and knockstiff with the accounts kinetica and littlezen. He, argues that anomalies in the game play statistics of how these accounts played against each other, and against their 49 most common opponents, could only indicate that these accounts were in fact colluding.
Poker Table Ratings Blog

This adds a whole new twist to the scandal as he had previously admitted to having multiple accounts and resigned his position as StoxPoker Coach. This embarrassment has led to Cardrunners Closing the StoxPoker Brand and merging it with their own to take attention away from the disaster and save the jobs of the many great instructors who remained on the Stox roster.

I guess it should be no surprise that in this game where millions of dollars can be won and lost at the click of a button the temptation to cheat is enormous. It is just a shame to discover that so many bad apples were in one basket (StoxPoker). Only time will tell if StoxTrader is an innocent victim of statistical anomalies and guilt by association with a bad crowd or yet another blight on the face of the poker community.

Microgaming Stoop Even Lower and Start Legal Moves Over Microgamingscandal.com

For a long time now we've been following the Microgaming Scandal on the popular Two Plus Two forums. One member there who reportedly lost a substantial sum during the collapse of Tusk which Microgaming has publicly washed it's hands of (see the APCW show in our previous post) is trying to keep the public informed. He made the MicrogamingScandal.Com which currently points to the relevant story on 2+2.

Well shockingly rather than engage in sensible discussion with the likes of the APCW or other representatives of the poker community, Microgaming have chosen to attack one of the victims of their allegedly slack network management that allowed Tusk and Eurolinx to allegedly operate without sufficient licenses and without appropriate player protection.

I've received a cease and desist regarding microgamingscandal.com. Can anyone help me out with this, or should I seek the advice of a lawyer?
skier_5 (on 2+2)

Now I'm not going to rehash an old story by going over everything in detail but I feel like their stance on the APCW report that they are just a software provider is unacceptable. As many of us know who have played on the network in the past, Microgaming security preside over decisions on refunds in network error situations, collusion, cheating etc. Yet when big money is involved and one of their skins is cheating they expect to be able to just turn away and players to not feel cheated and confused? Come on.

Players need to feel safe and secure to keep the flow of fish into our games and keep poker healthy. Networks making it easy for anyone who feels like it to open a poker room and not carrying out sufficient checks isn't something that's ever going to help. There's plenty of good safe poker rooms out there on networks that take security very seriously and don't seek to turn away when things go wrong.

Scandal and Resignations Lead to Closure of Stoxpoker and Merge With CardRunners Brand

Another day and another turn in the StoxPoker Story. Cardrunners have decided to bin the brand and close Stox, merging members and instructors into their Cardrunners stable.

Whilst Cardrunners is the premium brand and in the long run this move will cost the members who stay on money the many members who had paid in advance - often for up to a year - who felt let down by the scandal, resignation and issues at Stox get a great deal out of this. For that reason I commend the management team for a strong decision to give the best value to their existing members in the face of a collapsed and hollow shell left under the Stox umbrella.

In lieu of the recent events, it has been decided that the StoxPoker website will be merged with CardRunners. This change will take full-effect on May 1st, 2010.

Alex Huang: Stoxpoker Brand Manager

The Timeline

January 11th: Dusty "Leatherass" Shmidt Leaves StoxPoker

In the first of a series of high profile resignations (already Beachjustice and James262 had quit in a more subdued fashion) Leatherass quit Stoxpoker. His close friend Mbolt1 joined him and a feeling of loss spread through the Stoxpoker community.

January 28th: Jason Ho Scandal Allegations Reach Their Peak

Shortly after the Leatherass departure and as many members of the training community were still feeling the loss of their lead coach allegations surfaced and refused to die that Jason Ho was a scam artist. He is eventually dismissed by Stox Poker.

Present Day

As the Stoxtrader allegations surfaced and we covered here it was becoming clear that a toxic management environment had formed at Stoxpoker. The allegations worsened and Stoxtrader himself resigned leading to the decision by Cardrunners management to merge the brands.

For those of you who prefer a laugh, I'll leave you with the Jason Ho Parody Video Camp Afghanistan (mocking his famous Camp Macau).

Shock as StoxTrader Resigns as StoxPoker Coach

StoxPoker Instructional Videos

Poker Training Videos site StoxPoker was hit by a shocking revelation as today their lead instructor and the man the site is named after walked out. The resignation followed intense speculation about his role in multiaccounting on Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars.

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce my resignation as a stoxpoker coach today. I have put the company in a difficult position given the recent negative publicity surrounding my breaking poker sites terms of service, and refusal to publicly explain my January 2010 account switch. It is true that I had multiple accounts...

StoxTrader explained in what we assume will be his last announcement as a lead instructor at StoxPoker.

This follows the largely shocking Jason Ho Scandal where the vetting process for coaches on the site was found lacking. He eventually was dismissed by the company.

The roster is now significanly depleted by the departure of a number of their lead instructors to Drag The Bar including Hunter "BeachJustice" Bick, Dusty "Leatherass" Shmidt and many more.

Worryingly for management a number of the coaches prefer to publically hide their results and Ed Miller one of the sites owners and leading author for Two Plus Two Publishing continues to insist winrate isn't his main motivation in poker. Whilst that may be true some assurance from it's coaches that some of them are winning is becoming more and more important to members as the house of cards that was the online poker training business Stoxpoker crumbles in front of us.

...what success means to me, personally, as a poker player ... I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't a winrate.

Miller mused on his latest Blog for Stox and in his article for CardPlayer magazine.